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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!olivea!decwrl!decwrl!csus.edu!netcom.com!hasty From: hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) Subject: Re: Disk Thrashing question Message-ID: <hastyCE206B.4ys@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) References: <2884k2$d9k@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <rich.749200452@isr0004.urh.uiuc.edu> <288mln$f82@pdq.coe.montana.edu> Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 07:44:35 GMT Lines: 45 In article <288mln$f82@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes: >In article <rich.749200452@isr0004.urh.uiuc.edu>, >Rich <rich@isr0004.urh.uiuc.edu> wrote: >I write: >>>I am mildly suprised that Linux handles running out of memory better, >>>especially after hearing some of the horror stories that happen when >>>Linux runs out of memory. I suppose it's possible that you are also >>>running out of swap space. A way to check that is to run swapinfo in >>>another xterm when you start up emacs, and see what state your system is >>>in. >> >>Horror stories? I dont think it is considered a horror story when your >>machine decides to reboot when it is out of memory.. at least it's over >>in a minute or two and you can get on with your work, rather than a hang >>which you have to leave there for a while to see if it is going to recover. > >Most people would consider that unacceptable behavior. "'Scuse me, I'm >sorry your process had been running for 3 weeks and only have 1 hour >left to do, but we ran out of memory and the machine reboot." Basically >all of the work was wasted up to that point. Besides, the horror I was >referring to have to do with disk corruption (having two files with the >exact same file name). Why do you think Linus implemented the new >memory scheme where Linux actually says "I'm out of memory"? > >It is a well known fact that shared library implementation in Linux >allows the machine to work better under lower memory constraints, and >the BSD folks are working on getting a shared library scheme in place. >But flaming other developers does nothing other than get everyone's >feathers ruffled and does nothing to encourage free *nices, which >I believe should be the goal, not to fight each other. I think that we should have the recourse for just trashing those user processs which tend to consume system resources. In othere words we should have better heuristics for managing our system resources just implementing shared library libraries is not going to make the problem go away. Cheers, Amancio -- This message brought to you by the letters X and S and the number 3 Amancio Hasty | Home: (415) 495-3046 | ftp-site depository of all my work: e-mail hasty@netcom.com | sunvis.rtpnc.epa.gov:/pub/386bsd/incoming